Subscribe to this blog

Follow by Email

Choosing prayerfulness over hurry and stress

At Sanctuary and in my personal life, the battle of prayerfulness over hurry is in full swing. You can't be prayerful and be in a rush at the same time. The two states of mind are mutually exclusive. So what happens when all your hurry-instincts are put to the test? It happened for me a couple days ago.

I was taking Nathaniel for his first day of basketball camp, and we were there for first-day registration and check-in. We were right on time -- 5 minutes early. When we walked into the gym, a few parents were sitting with their kids on the bleachers waiting for things to get started. There was a registration table at the end of the bleachers where several camp staff members were talking. Like the other parents and kids, Nathaniel and I found a seat on the bleachers.

Folks continued to stream in, and the bleachers were filling up. It was nearing 8:40, check-in time. I felt content to sit with Nathaniel and be patient. My inner world was in a good state. And that's when the stress began.

Two moms walked up to the registration table and started forming their own line for registration. They looked around smugly -- like they had just outsmarted everyone else in the room. Two more moms joined them. And then another. Quickly the crowd realized what was happening, and the new social norm became "get in line" instead of "wait on the bleachers."

At this point, I realized I was facing a decision. Normally I would have gotten a spot in line no more than ten spots deep, seeing as how I loath waiting. But this morning, I said no.

No to "I have to outsmart everyone else."No to "I have to win the get-in-line-first competition."No to "I have to hurry."No to "I am too stressed out to wait."

I said no, and I was not going to give in. However, as the line grew, I became more conflicted about my choice. Now there were at least 50 parents in line. I chatted a little with Nathaniel. He asked me why I wasn't in line. I said, "I am not going to do that. I refuse to get in that line just because everyone else is." He didn't understand, and I was pretty sure I couldn't adequately explain things.

Within me, the battle was raging. I silently sought God, wanting to be with him in an unhurried, unstressed inner place rather than participate in the ritual of rush I saw taking place around me. It was not easy. I looked up, and registration still hadn't started, and now the line was out the door of the gym, stretched all the way to the outer gate near the parking lot. I wondered if I had made a mistake. Now all the parents who were showing up late were getting in line, and I wasn't. With perfect childish logic, I felt I deserved to cut in front of them.

However, at that point, the line was so long that the die had been cast. I was going to wait this thing out. I returned to prayer. Nathaniel ran out on the court and started shooting baskets with the other kids, leaving me to sort out this very telling inner struggle. As the minutes went by, things got a little easier. Was I overcoming a broken part of myself or was I happier because they opened registration and the line began to shorten? Maybe it was a little of both.

I was praying, and part of what I did was acknowledge to God how ugly my inner hurry-reflexes are. I got a good look at how hurry pushed me toward being ugly, vindictive, and god-ignoring.

Registration dragged on for another 20 minutes, and finally I walked to the table to register -- dead last. And you know what? It didn't matter in the least. The camp hadn't started yet. Nathaniel was happily shooting baskets, so he didn't care. The only one who cared was the childish voice within me.

This 20-minute struggle was surprisingly challenging, but prayerfulness won out in the end. Prayer doesn't just happen when we are at peace. It also happens when someone gets in line in front of us, or when all those people who showed up after us get to register before us, or when we find ourselves dead last. Basketball registration was an interesting lab for me, but we all have situations that test us. What will win out -- hurry or prayer?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

This week the church has lost a great saint and a shining light. Dallas Willard succumbed to cancer. As John Ortberg says in a wonderfully written tribute, Willard was brilliant, but "his heart and his life were better than his mind."

I thought it would be appropriate to bring out ten quotes that do a pretty good job of getting at what Willard spent his life teaching and working on.

1. This quote states the central problem Willard spent his career working on:
"My hope is to gain a fresh hearing for Jesus, especially among those who believe they already understand him. In his case, quite frankly, presumed familiarity has led to unfamiliarity, unfamiliarity has led to contempt, and contempt has led to profound ignorance." (opening paragraph of The Divine Conspiracy)
2. The central problem, restated:
"The governing assumption today, among professing Christians, is that we can be 'Christians' forever and never become disciples." (The Great Omission, …

I am working on a book chapter on humility, and as I was beginning the chapter, I realized that humility is pretty hard to define. And yet we tend to know when people are humble and when they are not. So I asked on Facebook, "How do you know when someone is humble?" The responses helped me clarify things in my mind on a couple of points. I'll quote a handful of the responses that consistently focused on two signs of humility.

SelflessnessHumility involves a certain kind of self-forgetfulness. Humility liberates us from self-obsession and frees us to focus our energy on others. The humble person "goes unnoticed much of the time," and that's okay. Humility means being willing to go unnoticed.

When a humble person circulates socially, there is quiet peace about oneself and boisterous joy in the accomplishments of others. For humble people, "it’s not all about them all the time. They give
credit when credit is due and don’t worry when credit for themselves …

Sometimes it feels like life is one long wrestling match against a stronger opponent. Very few things come easily. How we come through life's many challenges is a matter of having a biblical perspective and some practical steps to take.

Our family bought a house this summer. The inspector said, "For a 60-year-old house, this place is in great shape." He went on to say those magical words: "it has really good bones." Well, no sooner did we move in than things stopped working and we discovered all sorts of problems. One morning Susan was turning on the shower, and the shower handle came off in her hand. You know, stuff like that. On the more serious side, when Sacramento got its first good rain of the year, I came home to find water dripping steadily from the ceiling in the living room onto one of the television speakers we had bought five days earlier. Living in this house has felt like a wrestling match in which I'm being outpointed rather badly.

This morning I head a short interview of Bob Richter, author of A Very Vintage Christmas. I haven't read the book, but I connected with his comments. Richter says the reason we love the Christmas season is that it allows us to pause and become sentimental. It's like our whole culture gives itself permission to look into one another's eyes and tear up just a little.

Christmas traditions are like historical connective tissue. An old glass ornament knits together childhood and adulthood. Grandma's plastic Santa reminds us of her sugar cookies and what the house smelled like when she was baking.

The spirit of Richter's interview was this: go ahead and indulge yourself in the sentimentality of Christmas. Gifts are only a springboard for the real treat: having a heart-to-heart connection with others. And the theology of Christmas is just as simple: God dwells in those connections!

I am gearing up to lead a discussion this Sunday at Sanctuary about possessions and happiness. Jesus warns people not to make too much of money. For the typical American -- even the typical American Christian -- this message falls on deaf ears.

I will argue that Jesus wasn't out to require his followers to live in poverty. Rather, he wanted them to be acutely aware how a desire for money and all it can buy us can worm its way into our hearts and become the key by which we make decisions. Be free, and you can live free -- and this can happen for both the poor and the rich.

Personal finance write J. D. Roth holds a fascinating discussion of the relationship between possessions and happiness in the first chapter of his book, Your Money: The Missing Manual. He makes the argument that whereas money can help bring you limited happiness, money's impact on happiness is actually much smaller than we usually think. After you have gained the basic necessities of food, safety, clothing an…

Pastor of Sanctuary Covenant Church in Sacramento. Author of two books. Part-time professor. Homelessness advocate.
I love ukulele and blues guitar, and yodeling is in my music mix.
If I could only convey to you one thing, here's what it would be: Jesus is good, and his way of life will make you deeply happy.